Blake MacKay interviewed by Richard Ade - February 26, 2001

• MacKay, Blake

Richard Ade Interviews

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Blake MacKay

AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

Drew Plantation, Maine

AND WHAT YEAR WERE YOU BORN?

06-27-25

HOW MANY OF YOU WERE THERE IN YOUR FAMILY?

Brothers and Sisters?

YES.

Eight

WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S OCCUPATION?

School teacher, town manager

AND YOUR MOTHER’S?

Housewife

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME?

We lived on a farm approximately a mile from the village so…we had dairy cattle. Primarily we would take care of the animals. So it was a normal, easy family life, I guess. Course, during the depression there wasn’t any money around and it was difficult.

WHAT WERE YOUR GRANDPARENTS LIKE?

Pardon?

WHAT WERE YOUR GRANDPARENTS LIKE?

Farmers…well, one grandparent had a country store and ran that all his life (my mother’s father) and my other grandparent (my father’s father) was a woodsman and a farmer and was very, outstanding probably personality, but mostly by his size…he was six foot four and went 320 pounds and was extremely strong. My grandmother was, well, you might say, probably an outstanding student. She could spell words backwards just as fast as she could forward and she was a very good singer…this was my father’s mother and very, you might say, probably shy-type person. Probably not to us children, but maybe to the public, I don’t know. My grandfather McCabe was a very jolly person and very well liked by everybody in the area.

WHAT ARE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES?

My earliest memories were when they built a large bridge right next to our house and I remember the crew…I don’t know why they did….I was three to five years old and I was running around while they were cutting the steel, doing all that, so that was quite a memory to me…This bridge was approximately as large as the Androscoggin right here. That was probably the clearest memory when I was small. Three to Five.

WHAT WERE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT EARLY INFLUENCES?

Well….in…you mean…that you look up to…or….

YES.

Probably my father. And other people in the area that were well known.

WHERE DID YOU FIRST GO TO SCHOOL?

Right in Drew Plantation. There was a one room country school and I went eight grades to the one room school and then in the adjoining town there was a high school at that time and I went there to high school.

WHAT WERE YOUR TEACHERS LIKE?

Some good…some were very good and others were probably not too interested in whether the children got an education or not. But, most of them, I think today, would be very good teachers…maybe exceptional, during the depression. When the economy improved, they went to the bigger and better schools but, at that time, if they could get a job anywhere, they took it.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST ABOUT YOUR SCHOOL DAYS?

Not studying, probably more than anything else. Probably enjoying the other students and having a good time, but I spent VERY LITTLE time studying.

DID YOU PLAY ANY SPORTS?

Um, yes, a little, but it was a very small school. I was playing baseball and I think they didn’t have enough to keep the baseball team…so that was it. I did play basketball, too. But, in comparison to all in and around Bethel, I don’t think I would have made the team. There were some very good athletes around Bethel and I did not compare to them. Oh, some things …Wrestling…I would have been there. I was exceptionally strong. I could…by lesson example, I don’t know if you know the people in town…you probably don’t, but….you’ve seen anvil’s, of course, and what I called …..maybe weighed 75 pounds, I took it in one hand, according to Dan and ______ and set it up on the bench. Of course, you don’t pick it up and hold it like this, you pick it up like this and only one other man came into the shop that could pick it off the floor.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST UNPLEASANT MEMORY FROM YOUR SCHOOL DAYS?

School Days?…..Maybe sitting all day or getting bored, probably.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Swimming. The river was right outside the house and we used to swim in the river all the time. It was a nice clean river….Probably swimming, fishing…playing on the river probably, was the best. We had horses. We used to ride the horses all the time. Yes, I look back at it and it was quite…we had big wolves. Course, we grew up with them so we weren’t worried about being around them. But any of the non-farm kids that came around were quite worried about being around the large animals. We thought that was quite a joke.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Probably doing the chores. Milking Cows. We hand milked the cows so …truthfully, it wasn’t that hard….you know, kids think it is.

WHERE DID YOU FIRST WORK?

On the river. Other than on the farm, I was throwing in pulp for the paper company.

WHERE HAVE YOU WORKED SINCE THEN?

Well, as you go up through the…after I came out of the service I was working on the farm…I went into the service and after I came out of the service I worked in a saw mill. When I came to Bethel, I worked driving a taxi for my brother-in-law and then I started working as an electrician and then for the person I worked for, who was going to Florida in the winter, I went to school in Boston for two years as an electrician and I’ve worked as an electrician ever since in different places. I worked in the Portsmouth Shipyard and then I worked as an electrical contractor, putting wires in old buildings..practically every building there was around….. And then in 1966, I went to work for the State of Maine and I was a Chief Electrical Inspector and an Executive Secretary of the Electrician’s Examining Board in Augusta. So, I worked out of Augusta. I’d go to Augusta one or two days a week for approximately 30 years. That was interesting because it was never do the same thing day after day. I think I’ve been in nearly every Court in the State of Maine. We used to prosecute electricians for doing work without a license and we investigated fires and it involved many different types of installations or paperwork. We were expected to be able to…assume you were designing a paper mill and you have a question on the electrical…they would call me because I was the Chief Inspector and wanted to know if it met plans or met code. The way the electrical system is set up in the United States …it’s developed by a National Fire Protection Association so I was very well acquainted with the experts there and if I questioned it, I would call and make sure that our interpretation is correct. We used to get a lot of calls. I remember in later years, my phone bill would average about, let’s say, about $200 something usually, because I would be out in the field…I wouldn’t be at the WATTS line in the office except maybe one or two days a week. And, since I was easy going, I used to allow people to call me at home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I’d answer their questions. I didn’t care when they called or how often. So, I knew, I said it one time, I thought I knew somebody in every town in the State of Maine and I worked every town in the State of Maine at different times from the time I started until the time I retired. It was interesting working in the Portsmouth Shipyard. I just couldn’t stand to stay there for as long as I’d stayed there…because we were many, many different types of unions at the shipyard. The group that I worked for distributed the power throughout the system at the yard and it was interesting. There were about 60 of us in that group and if you didn’t have a break-down there might be days when you really didn’t have anything to do because they were there in case they had to have them. It wasn’t , in many respects, the busiest job in the world and since I had been working to complete a project, you might say, every day, all the time, before I went in there, it just wasn’t my thing. The money was about three times what I was making before I went in, but then as far as the other people, back at that time, I don’t know what it is now…Say you go in the shipyard as a laborer and you bid that job off into one that you have seniority and then they’re going to take you, then you’re supposed to train for that job. Well, look at it this way, I probably, of the ones I knew, they started right in from the first time that they had something to do, they’d have something to do, they’d come for me. In that 20 some years they bid the job off and the type of work they were doing didn’t have much to do with electricity but came under that job, so , if they had anything to do with electrical work, they would usually come to me and want me to take somebody in that had twenty years in. I didn’t mind. They were nice guys and all that. But, the work wasn’t very complicated as to what I had been doing. I thought it was quite simple. I went in as a First Class Electrician and it’s a civil service job so they just interviewed me and I passed. They didn’t ask anything very complicated . They were nice people to work for and all that, but the job I had was more or less be there is something happens and we need you. That was the Shipyard which was interesting.

My normal work, probably the most interesting part was the court appearances. Being recognized as an expert witness. Once you are recognized as an expert witness, you can give your opinion. You don’t have to say, as you know, facts, you can give your opinions. One of the most interesting things is that I think I spent a day and a half in court in Machais…they wanted me recognized as an expert witness for electrical…course the opposing attorney doesn’t want to, so they try to give me a hard time. After you are recognized, they usually don’t give you a hard time next time you are in Court…You know the Court maybe….the first one was down in Washington County, the next one might be in Rockland….I had one other time that they were willing to recognize me as an expert in electrical but not with the rest of it, so they tried to give me a hard time about that. This was a murder trial. A young fellow had gone in and murdered two women and set the place on fire and the fire marshall investigated it and said it was electrical and they didn’t even do an autopsy on the bodies but the Uncle was worried….well it bothered him because one of the women he had found was locked up by the killer…so he took the money and told his buddies, I’m guessing, nobody told me for sure, but I think they picked the bodies up from somewhere else and whatever else you hear off of this, we’ll give you some other information. So, I had to go in, examine the fire scene and then testify that it was an electrical fire and then the defendant said he didn’t want me recognized as an expert on electrical stuff and he tried to disqualify me. He, let’s say, didn’t like to ask the right questions. He ended up giving me a hard time about all these other things which didn’t do him any good. He finally asked me….”If I considered myself an expert?” and so, of course, I responded with …”an expert as compared to whom…His boss, Holton…?” and the jury laughed right out loud. So, I gave my opinion. The fire was not started by electrical. Of course, I already had been told what had happened so I knew pretty well what had happened, but that was before the guy was convicted. Very nice guy before he was convicted….young fellow…probably, I’d guess, in his 20’s. But, on the State’s issues in in Waldboro, you know that’s down by Rockland. And on the State’s 14 witnesses, 11 of them have a criminal background.

WHAT WAS YOUR WORST WORK EXPERIENCE?

Possibly, on the night I was in Presque Isle and they called and said they want you immediately in Poland and I could not finish what I was doing in Presque Isle and I had to come home immediately, which takes quite a while. And the same idea….I was in Wiscassett and they wanted me on Peak’s Island immediately. In fifteen minutes I could have done what I wanted to in Wiscaseett, but no, nothing like that matters and it’s kind of frustrating to me. Things like that.

WHAT TO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT WORLD WAR II?

I was in the service. Well, of course, I remember it right from the very, very start from when the German’s were going into France. I was a kid but I remember it very plainly and about my father and other people talking about it and school….Of course, I was in school, naturally and I can remember the teachers saying that they…the Germans…were now going to France and the French Army was too strong and they could never win that and then they ran over France just like it was nothing. So, right from then, right up until I remember pretty vividly the things that happened, but I didn’t go into the service until the last part of the war and I was trained in infantry and we were shipped over seas and we were going to be replacement infantry to invade….but luckily the war ended as we were on the water going over. While I was in, we had Japanese prisoners. We had 50 per day that would come in a work for us. Of course, we actually didn’t actually get in combat, our attitude was quite different toward them than the ones that had been shot at or had been killed, etc. The Japanese were just interested in just waiting to go home. They were very good workers, very easy to get along with. When the war was over, we gave them our rifles…you could see they had no interest in doing anything but going home. They were very, very thin. You could see they were malnourished and you could see they had not eaten properly. They were at least 20 lbs under weight.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE GREAT DEPRESSION?

Well, a lot. There were families and parents with very few jobs and no money at all and there was relief as I first remember, Roosevelt was president and when he came in he had a lot of food distributed and my father was either..town manager…there were quite a few towns who went bankrupt in the depression….So, the State had to take over the towns…this is what happened in Albany, right here, and my father was Town Manager for the State for two or three towns so he distributed the food quite a bit to different families and things like that. There was very little money, I remember that in particular, of course. And the teachers…now, in the school where I went to school, I do remember this, of course that was one of the town’s where my father was Town Manager, they didn’t pay the teachers week after week. They wouldn’t get paid.. They might only be able to give them a partial payment, but they didn’t have enough money to pay them. And they didn’t pay a lot, either. I remember my father discussing that with them that there just wasn’t money left to pay them.

WHAT DO YOU REMBMBER ABOUT THE 1950’S?

Well, I got married in 1952, so I remember that quite well. I remember pretty much…new cars which were just beginning to come out after the war…They were manufactured but they were really, you might say, quite prevolent, or there was lot in the 50’s in compared to what we thought the economy was quite good in the 50’s but compared to now it was nothing. But, most people had jobs, which was different. But, I’d say, by the 60’s people my age were in a very nice period.

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT?

Well, maybe Eisenhower.

WHY?

Well, everybody thought that he was very honest and was really interested in looking out for the people and wasn’t interested in making all the money and all this…and he primarily made mistakes but, usually, the mistakes, as I remember, were from people that were advising. So, everybody makes mistakes like this. I think that he…..I also thought that Truman did a very good job. He was about the same qualities, in some ways as Eisenhower. He was very honest, I thought. I am a little different than a lot of them. I never was very thrilled over Kennedy, myself. Maybe that’s from being a dyed-in-the wool Republican. But, Truman was a Democrat. I liked him a lot and some of the others too. I think, truthfully, as far as ability is concerned, that Clinton probably has as much ability as any of them but he had a different personality, I guess you’d might say than Truman and Eisenhower. He entered a lot younger, etc. As far as his ability is concerned, he is smart, I think.

WHAT WAS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE PRESIDENT?

Maybe, I guess, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t have one. At the time, you think something, but after they’re out you find different. Right now I guess I might say maybe Clinton.

WHAT IMPORTANT CHANGES DID YOU NOTE IN YOUR LIFETIME?

The economy is a critical thing in my life time…very much so. And, of course, what I first remember, is nobody even had radios. Cars were very, very few. There were a few cars around, but not a lot. Course, I lived in a very poor area of the State and so transportation, of course, is altogether different. Railways…where the train came in to the small town …boy, you’d see train after train with 100 cars. So, the train rails were very, very important when I was growing up. Then they went from there to a fraction of what they used to be. Of course, there were river drives when I was growing up and then they stopped using the river. So, that’s the things I think of right off quick. Course, there were no planes for transportation at all. There were no televisions. The first t.v. that I really watched, I guess, at all, was in Boston when I was going to school. There was some coming into Bethel at the same time. I think they were only getting the Boston stations so the reception was not that good.

WHEN DID YOU GET MARRIED?

’52.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR WIFE?

She lived in the building next to me.

WHAT DIDYOU DO FOR WORK WHEN YOU GOT MARRIED?

I think I worked for Brooks Brothers in the store as an electrician…..

WHERE HAVE YOU LIVED SINCE YOU GOT MARRIED?

Except for the short period of time when I worked in Portsmouth Shipyard…and I just had a room. My wife didn’t live there, so, actually I have lived in Bethel ever since.

WHAT IS THE OCCUPATION OF YOUR WIFE?

She works in the store.

WHAT ARE HER HOBBIES?

Decorating, sewing, probably hooking….reading…travelling. She probably told you we went to Italy for three weeks one time. We went to Texas a couple of times and Louisiana a couple of times.

WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN LIKE?

I have four children. The oldest one has a masters in psychology or therapy or something like this and she is a teacher. My next one has a masters in education and she isn’t teaching right now but she teaches in New York…she did. The next one, the youngest girl, was the manager of a drug store and an executive in another store…can’t remember the name of it…she’s still working there. Her husband is a banking executive. The next one up (husband) is a nuclear engineer and the oldest one’s husband just retired. He was a lieutenant colonel in the service and he’s teaching at Telestar. And my son is in New York City and has been there along time. What he does is coordinate everything for the Board in New York City. They all have gone to college. The oldest one went to college in Texas and Maine. The next one New York and Maine and the third girl went to Maine and Connecticut for college and Blaine went to New York to one of the better known colleges…Williams College. He had a scholarship there.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BETHEL?

Since 1947, Fifty…forty years, I guess it would be…

HOW DID YOU COME TO LIVE IN BETHEL?

My sister lived in Bethel.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THIS AREA?

The mountains and pretty much the landscape. The recreation now. Rivers and lakes. It’s much, much different than the area I grew up in. There were no mountains up and around the area I grew up in. There were a lot of swamps…not many swamps up this way. It’s a lot flatter….but the people were nice. There is very little area in the state where the area was as flat and had as many swamps as Washington County and that area, where I grew up. Although, I didn’t live in Washington County, I lived in Penobscot County…but where I lived was where Penobscot, Aroostook and Washington Counties all came together, right close. We have four hundred acres up there.

WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE ABOUT THIS AREA?

Well, it would be the traffic (laugh). I suppose the only thing I can think of now, with a lot of traffic. There never used to be. It never really bothers me much until you want to cross the road. I’m all for Sunday River, truthfully.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGED?

I would like to see more people involved with our local government. I served on the board of selectmen and I think the more people that knew what was going on would appreciate all the work the people are involved do, like the selectmen. I think we have a very good group in there now although I’ve never been to a meeting. But, I think they really know what they’re doing and they do a good job. I think if more people would get involved, it would be better.

WHAT COMMUNITY SERVICE/ACTIVITIES ARE YOU IN?

Usually, I volunteer for different things like you know…rewired the electrical for some of the public buildings. I helped build a skating rink this fall. My son-in-law is in charge of it. I have volunteered at all of the local churches..Catholic, Methodist…I have done the electrical work for those buildings. Oh, and I volunteered here. I helped re-wire this building and I helped put all this stuff in here. So, usually, I just volunteer for different projects all around. If there is something I am capable of doing, I will volunteer. I used to be a member of the Fire Department.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS?

For Me?

YES.

Going to school, when I went to the Tech school in Boston. That was probably the most important decision that I made. And getting married.

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE INFLUENCED YOUR LIFE THE MOST?

Well, actually, probably the …working for the electrical to get me involved in the electrical influenced me more than anything else. Although, when I was about 16 or 17 I had never seen an electrician and then I wired a building and connected the power to it…without ever seeing an electrician or knowing an electrician and I completely wired the building and connected the power to it and know how it works. So, after that, I started working for an electrician when I went to school. So, evidently I was interested in electrical anyway.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU THINK IS MOST IMPORTANT TO PROVIDE TO YOUNG PEOPLE?

Learn and be willing to work whatever you are involved with

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FUTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY WILL BE LIKE?

Hopefully, it will be peaceful and there will be more of a common economy…so all people will be able to earn enough money to be comfortable. Hopefully that will happen.

DO YOU SEE A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR BETHEL?

Yes. Definitely. Knowing the people that are living here and their abilities…I think they will be able to do very well for the town. As you look at different towns, it’s quite important to have people that have been involved with industry if you want to continue with industry. That’s one thing that Bethel has gone away from more than it should, in my opinion. There used to be a lot of small mills in the area and now there isn’t as many but I still think that yes, I see a good future for the town, myself.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?

No.